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THE HYMN OF JESUS

By G. R. S. MEAD

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PREAMBLE

ust as many other settings of the Sayings and Doings of the Lord existed prior to and alongside of the canonical Gospels, so were there, prior to and alongside of the subsequently selected or canonical Acts, many other narratives professing to record the doings and sayings of the Apostles and Disciples of the Lord.

   Most of these originated in circles which were subsequently called heretical, and many of them were later on worked over by orthodox editors to suit doctrinal preconceptions, and so preserved for the edification of large numbers in the Catholic or General Church.

   As Lipsius says: "Almost every fresh editor of such narratives, using that freedom which all antiquity was wont to allow itself in dealing with literary monuments, would recast the materials which lay before him, excluding whatever might not suit his theological point of view--dogmatic statements, for example, speeches, prayers, etc., for which he would substitute other formulæ of his own composition, and further expanding and abridging after his own pleasure, or as the immediate object which he had in view might dictate."

   Some of these edited and re-edited documents, though for the most part they have come down to us in a very fragmentary condition, still preserve distinct traces of their Gnostic origin; and Lipsius has shown that their Gnosticism is not to be ascribed to third century Manichæism, as had been previously assumed by many, but to the general Gnosis of the second century.

   There was a very wide circulation of such religious romances in the second century, for they formed the main means of Gnostic public propaganda.

   The technical inner teachings of Gnosticism were assailed by the subsequently orthodox Church Fathers with misrepresentation and overwhelmed with ridicule.

   To these onslaughts the Gnostics, as far as we are aware, made no reply; most probably because they were bound by oaths of secrecy on the one hand, and on the other knew well that the mysteries of the inner life could not be decided by vulgar debate.

   The mystic teachings of their Gospel were for those who knew the nature of the inner life by direct experience; for the rest they were foolishness.

   Their Acts-romances also appear often to be based on actual occurrences of the inner life and on direct spiritual experience, subsequently worked up into popular forms; the marvellous complexity and baffling sublimity of apocalyptic ecstasy, and the overabundant and pregnant technology which delighted the member of the inner circles of the Gnostic Christians, were excluded, and all was reduced to simpler terms.

   These marvellous narratives may seem vastly fantastic to the modern mind, but to every shade of Christianity in those days, they were entirely credible. The orthodox did not repudiate the marvellous nature of the narratives; what they opposed with such bitterness was the doctrinal implications with which they were involved.

   These Acts-romances thus formed the intermediate link between the General Church and the inner teachings of Gnosticism, and they were so popular that they could not be disposed of by ridicule simply. Another method had to be used.

   To quote from Lipsius again: "Catholic bishops and teachers knew not how better to stem this flood of Gnostic writings and their influence among the faithful, than by boldly adopting the most popular narratives from the heretical books, and, after carefully eliminating the poison of false doctrine, replacing them in this purified form in the hands of the public."

   Fortunately for some of us, this "purification" has not been complete, and some of the "poison of false doctrine" has thus been preserved. Among other things of great beauty for which we are grateful, we especially thank a kindly providence for the preservation of the Hymn of Jesus.

   The earliest collection of these Gnostic Acts is said to have been made by a certain Leucius, surnamed Charinus. There is a tradition, though of somewhat doubtful authenticity, that this Leucius was a disciple of John. If we accept it at all, this John must be taken for the writer of the Fourth Gospel, and not the John of the original Twelve.

   It would be impossible here to enter into any discussion of the baffling Johannine problem; those of our readers, however, who are interested in the manifest Gnostic implications with which this problem is involved as far as it relates to the Fourth Gospel, should read Kreyenbuhl's exhaustive and instructive study Das Evangelium der Wahrheit (Berlin; 1900, 1905). His "new solution of the Johannine question," which Kreyenbuhl entitles "The Gospel of the Truth," boldly claims an immediate Gnostic origin for the Fourth Gospel; and this courageous pioneer of a new way even goes so far as to contend that the writer of what is indubitably the most spiritual of all the Gospels, was no other than Mænander, the teacher of Basilides. It is instructive to remark that this voluminous and important work has been passed over with complete silence in this country.

   At any rate the Leucian Acts were early; in the opinion of Zahn this collection was made at a time when the Gnostics were not yet considered heretical, that is to say prior to 150 A.D.--say 130 A.D.

   Lipsius on the other hand places them in the second half of the second century, towards the end, and so does Hennecke.

This maximum of date they are compelled to concede, because Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second century quotes from the Gnostic Acts of John which indubitably formed part of the Leucian collection.

   The controversy between Lipsius and Zahn was conditioned by the fact that they both agreed that the Acts of John quote from the Fourth Gospel. Zahn placed this Gospel earlier in date than Lipsius and was anxious to find in the Acts an early witness to that Gospel, indeed the earliest witness.

   It has, however, been strongly contested by Corssen whether the Acts quote from the Gospel; and as far as I can myself see from the passages adduced, there does not seem to be absolute evidence of any direct quotation. There is indubitably a close similarity of diction, as is so often the case in similar problems concerning nearly contemporary documents; but the problem is more easily satisfied by considering the writers as belonging to the same circle, than by seeking to prove direct literary plagiarism.

   However this may be, we are not to suppose that Leucius invented the Acts; he collected and adapted and wrote up the material. If he had invented all of it, he would have been a genius of no mean order.

   Leucius has a style of his own, and he also moved in a certain sweet atmosphere that is characteristic of the best in the Johannine tradition--the tradition of love, and intimacy, and simplicity; very different, for instance, from the more formal Pauline atmosphere.

   The Acts of John are indubitably Leucian, and judging by literary style so are the Acts of Peter. As to the rest of the Acts of the original Leucian collection, there is at present no certainty, and those assigned to Leucius by later writers must be put on one side as far as their present remains are concerned.

   It has been surmised by James that as Luke (Loukas) wrote the Orthodox Acts, the writer who wrote the Gnostic Acts called himself Leucius (Leukios) to suggest he was one and the same person; but this I consider highly improbable. The Gnostics are in general inventors and not copyists.

   It is also of interest to note that Zahn considers that the account of the genesis of the Fourth Gospel given by the writer of the Muratorian Fragment (c. 170 A.D.) was taken from the Leucian Acts. This Gospel is there said to have been written by a certain John, who was "of the Disciples." His "fellow-disciples and bishops" had apparently urged him to write a Gospel, but John hesitated to accept the responsibility, and proposed that they should all fast together for three days, and tell one another if anything was revealed to them. On the same night it is revealed to Andrew, who is "of the Apostles," that while all revised John should write down all things in his own name.

   If this information is taken from the Leucian Acts, it follows of course that their writer was acquainted with the Fourth Gospel. If we take this as certain--though from the adduced parallel phrases alone I cannot myself be quite certain--then the question arises how could Leucius have put into the mouth of John doctrines which are opposed to the teaching of the Gospel? To this question James gives the following answer:

   "His notion is that St. John wrote for the multitude certain comparatively plain and easy episodes in the life of the Lord: but that to the inner circle of the faithful his teaching was widely different. In the Gospel and Epistles we have his exoteric teaching: in the Acts his esoteric."

   This of course exactly reverses the relation that Corssen supposes to have existed between the Acts and Gospel; namely that the author of the Acts did not know the Gospel at all.

   It is of course the general Gnostic position that all true scripture had an under-meaning. The gospel-narratives were written for the people, but at the same time in such a fashion as to set forth allegorically the mysteries.

   If, then, any propaganda of these hidden mysteries was to be attempted in a less veiled form, it follows that a more spiritual standpoint had to be insisted on; and the popular narrative which was generally taken in a physical and material sense, was replaced by a more plastic and suggestive setting and exposition.

   But--we may ask, at any rate in the case of the Fourth Gospel--was it the Gospel-narrative that was prior in date, and the Gnostic rewriting of Gospel-incidents subsequent; or was it that the Gnostic ideas existed prior to the writing of the Gospel, and the matter incorporated into the Gnostic Acts derived directly from the same body of ideas that inspired the Gospel?

   As it now proved beyond all question that the Gnosis was pre-Christian, and that in what is generally called Gnosticism we are dealing with a Christianized Gnosis which demonstrably existed in the time of Paul, and which Paul found already existing in the Churches, we must conclude that there is nothing inherently improbable in the latter alternative.

   Moreover, the Gnosticism of the Acts of John is general and simple and cannot be assigned to this or that particular school of the Christian Gnosis.

 

   The marvellous and beautiful Hymn, which is the subject of this small volume, is found in what are without doubt the Leucian Acts of John. That, however, Leucius himself composed the Hymn is by no means to be taken for granted. Leucius was a collector and redactor--he used sources; and I have myself no doubt that the Hymn existed in Gnostic circles prior to the composition of the Acts--indeed, that it was a most precious document.

   The first external testimony to our Hymn is found in its use by the Priscillianists, in Spain, in the last third of the fourth century. The great movement known under the name of Priscillianism was a powerful revival of Gnosticism and Oriental mysticism and theosophy which poured over the Peninsula.

   The views of the Priscillianists on scripture were those of the rest of the Gnostics in general; their canon was catholic in the widest meaning of the term. Just as the Jewish scriptures were an imperfect revelation as compared with the general Christian books, so were the popular scriptures of Christianity imperfect in comparison with the revelations of the Gnosis.

   As the Old Covenant books were considered to be replete with types and figures, images and shadows of the Gospel-teaching, so were the books of the New Testament, in their turn, held to be figurative and symbolical of the inner teachings of the Gnosis. The former were intended for those of Faith, the latter for those in Gnosis.

   Against this view Augustine and Jerome waged remorseless war; for the country was flooded with an immense number of Gnostic documents. The Priscillianists were persecuted and martyred and the main care of the orthodox bishops was to seize their books and destroy them.

   Ceretius, one of the bishops presumably, had sent Augustine some of the books of these Gnostics; he himself seems to have been inclined to approve them. Augustine, in his answer, picks out for detailed criticism one document only--our Hymn. Concerning this he writes:

 

   "As for the Hymn which they say is that of our Lord Jesus Christ, and which has so greatly aroused your veneration, it is usually found in apocryphal writings, not peculiar to the Priscillianists but used by other heretics."

 

   Augustine adds a quotation from the introduction of the Gnostic M.S. of the Hymn, which runs:

   "The Hymn of the Lord which He sang in secret to the holy Apostles, His disciples, for it is said in the Gospel: 'And after singing a hymn He ascended the mount.' This Hymn is not put in the canon, because of those who think according to themselves, and not according to the Spirit and Truth of God, and that it is written: 'It is good to hide the sacrament of the King; but it is honourable to reveal the works of God.'"

 

   The Gospel referred to cannot be either Matthew (xxvi.31) or Mark (xiv.26), both of which read: "And after singing a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives." The second quotation I am unable to trace.

   An important point which will concern us later on is that Ceretius found the Hymn by itself and not in its context in the Acts; it was in all probability extracted for liturgical purposes.

   It is, moreover, evident from what Augustine writes in the first passage we have quoted that the Hymn was well-known in Gnostic circles.

   It would also seem as though Augustine, who wrote in Latin, was dealing with a Latin translation, rather than that he translated the quotation himself in his answer to Ceretius.

   Part only of the Greek text of this famous Hymn was known prior to 1899, when James published a hitherto unknown and very important fragment of the Acts of John, found in a fourteenth century M.S., in the Vienna Imperial Library. This contained what seems to be the full text of our Hymn, though, unfortunately, copied by a sometimes very careless scribe. Nearly the whole of this lengthy fragment consists of a monologue put into the mouth of John, and in it we have preserved to us a very remarkable tradition of the Gnostic side of the life of the Master; or, if it be preferred, of incidents in the "occult" life of Jesus.

   The whole setting of the christology is what is called "docetic." Our fragment is thus a most valuable addition to our knowledge of Docetism, and at last gives us a satisfactory reason why this view was held so widely by the Gnostics. Indeed it is now the most important source we possess, and puts the whole question on a different footing. In future our fragment must always be taken first as the locus classicus in any discussion of the question.

   Docetism was a theory which found its confirmation in narratives and legends of certain psychic or spiritual powers ascribed to the "perfect man."

   The christological and soteriological theories of the Gnostic philosophers were not, as many would have us believe, invented altogether à priori; they rested, I hold, on the basis of a veritable historical fact, which has for the most part been obscured out of all recognition by the flood of physical objective historicizing narratives of the origins.

   After His death, I believe, as many a Gnostic tradition claims, the Christ did return and teach His disciples and true lovers in the inner circles, and this fact which was made known to their consciousness in many marvellous ways, was to a large extent the origin of the protean Gnostic tradition of an an inner instruction.

   He returned in the only way He could return in this way of return--namely, in a subtle or "spiritual" mode or "body." This "body" could be made visible at will, could even be made sensible to touch, but was, compared with the normally objective physical body, an "illusory" body--hence the term "docetic."

   But just as the external tradition of those who are considered the original Jewish Christians, the Ebionîm (or Poor), was gradually transmuted and sublimated, so that it, finally, exalted Jesus from the status of a simple prophet in which it originally regarded him, unto the full Power and Glory of Godhead itself; so the internal tradition extended the doubtlessly simple original docetic notion to every department of the huge soteriological structure raised by Gnostic genius.

   The Leucian Acts of John pertain to the latter stream of tendencies, and "John" is the personification, so to say, of one of the lines of tradition of that protean Docetism, which had its origin in one of the best-known and most important facts of the spiritual life, or of "occult" experience, and of those marvellous teachings of initiation which became subsequently historicized or woven into historic settings, and which "John" in our fragment, sums up in the words:

 

   "I held firmly this one thing in myself, that the Lord contrived all things symbolically and by a dispensation towards men, for their conversion and salvation."

 

   That is to say, that all truly inspired narratives of the Doings and Sayings of the Christ are typical; or again, that He who is Christ, in all He does and says, as Christ, acts with the Cosmic Order. This is His "economy" and "ministry"--the doing of His "Father's business."

 

   We will now turn to the Hymn itself, and first give a version of it from Bonnet's text. In the newly-recovered fragment it is introduced as follows:

 

   "Now before He was taken by the lawless Jews--by them who are under the law of the lawless Serpent--He gathered us together and said:

 

   "'Before I am delivered over unto them we will hymn the Father, and so go forth to what lieth before [us].'

 

   "Then bidding us make as it were a ring, by holding each others' hands, with Him in the midst, He said:

 

   "'Answer "Amen" to Me.'

 

   "Then He began to hymn a hymn and say: